Tuesday, July 17, 2007

The Afterlife - published in VISIONS, June 2007

It's a hundred degrees in the shade;
walls are splattered with grafitti
in a foreign tongue, a trio of blind
angels tap their crooked sticks
down the dirt road, gaunt saints
roast mangy corn on an open
fire in tin roof shacks and silent,
scowling cherubs juggle cinders
and cobs. Then finally, above us,
the blare of trumpets, we think
at first, but it's the horn from
a rust-coated bus stacked with
chickens and iguanas in cages
driving us forward into a cloud
of dust.

Copyright 2007 Dan Campbell